


The Family You Make

by TwoCatsTailoring



Series: The Lives Within [16]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dad!Cor, F/M, Fluff, Solstice celebrations, all ships are background - Freeform, all the nice warm fuzzy feelings, next generation of kids, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 09:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13544148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoCatsTailoring/pseuds/TwoCatsTailoring
Summary: Dad!Cor. With his scraggly, adopted brood home for the holidays, there’s just one not-so-little-anymore piece missing. Post-Dawn, life moves on fic.





	The Family You Make

**Author's Note:**

> Why do I get myself into these things? Fluff and sap and now I've got more cavities!

Cor always said to Monica that this was his second favorite part of Solstice Week but that was a lie and they both knew it. Because watching everyone arrive at the Cape was nothing short of one of his life’s greatest joys.

He liked it in the summers too, when they would all come to roam over the rocks and beaches, but in the winter they stayed close. Loud and busy and chaotic and warm.

But watching them straggle up the hill; Gladio and his wife, with another baby every couple of years it seemed, Prompto or Iris first carrying, then helping, then hovering over, and now chasing after their Irvine as he bolted ahead of them up the path. Ignis, never without Enid and bringing the woman he’s dating with him (The man he was with before refused to come at all both Solstices they were together. Sketchy, in Cor’s opinion.) The four of them and their families, laughing, talking, and shouting beyond the glass; Cor could almost hear them.

He’d never really liked kids. When the bunch of adults in his yard right now was a bunch of kids and teenagers, he barely had the patience to train them, let alone look forward to the time he spent with them outside of the training room. He’d actively avoided it. But now?

Now was different. Different in every possible way. He was older, he had seen more, done more, lost more. He understood more now. Sometimes, he felt like he had most of the answers to the big questions that every grown-up kid kicking through the sand and scrub grass of the front yard had, but they never asked. And he knew that it was because they would have to figure it out in their own time, just like he did.

Close enough now that he could make out the color of Prompto’s eyes, he winked at Monica and opened the door, stepping out on to the porch with a frown on his face and his arms crossed. “Damned kids, get off my lawn!”

The chorus of laughter, followed by the squeals of the kids and the stampeding of small feet as they banged up the stairs, three of them this year shaking the stairs and taking him to his knees as they launched themselves at him with happy shouts and cold noses pressing into his face as they smothered him with kisses.

“Hey now, what are you doing in there?” He asked the oldest Amicitia daughter who’s hand was investigating the contents of his jacket pocket.

“Papa Cor,” she said in the best imitation of her mother’s non-nonsense voice, “I know you’ve got candy in here.”

“I guess I do,” he admitted as she pulled out a handful and shared it with her sister and cousin.

Cor let the corners of his mouth droop and she grudgingly handed him one too. “Don’t forget to take a red one to Momica,” he reminded her as she skipped off in the direction of the kitchen.

And from then on, Cor is floating warm and happy in a sea of the people he loves the best in the world. The kids are a mess, loud and funny and decidedly all family while the newest addition to the fold sleeps open-mouthed in his arms. Monica teases him that he might actually be getting used to holding babies at this late stage, and he just shrugs, pointing out that she seemed to have a higher tolerance for sticky handprints these days.

Everyone sits down to dinner and they all take a moment to remember the ones who couldn’t come. Glasses raised to toast those too far away or too old and tired (in Cid’s case) to be there, a moment so silence for those who’d gone on before. Then they all tucked in.

“What do you hear from Talcott?” It’s Gladio who asks, tearing crusts off of bread for his second-oldest.

“Not as much as I’d like. Communication is still not great,” Cor frowns. Before he can continue, he’s interrupted by the sound of the study door opening.

“Transportation’s improved, though,” comes the voice that, for the past 6 years he’s only heard over scratchy phone lines.

Cor had thought, most of the day, that his heart couldn’t get any fuller. Couldn’t feel any bigger or warmer or more content than it had in the noise and bustle of his family-of-choice. But seeing Talcott; a little taller, with broader shoulders and longer hair, but the same bright smile that he had when he was just a lost little kid who needed an anchor in a world gone insane; he was proved wrong.

And if he was wiping away tears as he reluctantly let go after a long hug, well. What parent wouldn’t?


End file.
